Tuesday, October 14, 2008

A Tough Nut to Crack

Looking to kill a few minutes this morning, I headed over to NW Republican, a blog that Lex keeps mentioning. I now know why he is obsessed with ACORN. That whole blog is pretty much dedicated to "exposing" ACORN and their links to Obama. We are the products of what we read, so it makes sense that Lex thought this would be an issue, but I didn't and don't see it getting any traction. Americans have no idea what ACORN is and nothing they find out about it now is going to change their minds about Obama. Same goes for Ayers and the Weather Underground. In order for these attacks to work, the McCainiacs would have to do a massive job of educating people. This job of "education" would have to not look like racism/classism. I don't think people care. Especially with the Ayers stuff. No one wants to take the time to learn about what this guy was doing in the '60s. No one cares what ACORN is doing. Even if they could make people care about Ayers/ACORN, they would then have to try to tie Obama into it. This is what they have been doing and failing a massive scale.

As Kerry learned four years ago, Americans don't seem terribly interested in who was doing what in the '60s and '70s. Served in Vietnam or not, it doesn't matter. Spent the '70s drinking and doing coke? Doesn't matter. Repeatedly opposed a holiday for MLK? Meh. Good friends with G. Gordon Liddy? Who cares? Worked as a community organizer for a group that has ties to other groups that have ties to '60s-era radicals? No one cares.

Despite Krauthammer's hilarious attempt to say otherwise, no politician is perfectly clean and voters right now don't seem terribly interested in the dirt. Our economy is in the tank. Our health care system is broken. We are currently still bogged down in a war in the Middle East (but could win within the next 100 years!). We need solutions for tomorrow. A great American statesperson recently reminded us that we cannot move forward if we are pointing backwards. Fortunately, that's the only play McCain-Palin have left and it is not going to work.

3 comments:

unionboy said...

Explain to me how Krauthammer can go on his rant about Obama's associations (most of which are tenuous) without mentioning that McCain was not only associated with Charles Keating, but was darn good friends with him. They vacationed together and later McCain did what he could to keep him out of trouble!

dave3544 said...

I'd imagine it's because Krauthammer knows he's a paid political hack.

The questions I have are how he gets out of bed every morning and why the Washington Post still pays him money to write up this hackery.

I'm hoping that one of the results of this election will be that our national newspapers will realize just how far out of touch their editorial pages are.

wobblie said...

I'm hoping that this election is the last national fight we're going to have about the Sixties. I think I speak for all of us when I say we're kinda sick of narcissistic boomers and their continual wrangling over the legacy of '68. Move on, indeed.

I second dave's sentiments about ACORN, Ayers, and the inevitable re-appearance of Rev. Wright. The old maxim says that if you're explaining, you're losing, and having to explain why ACORN and Ayers are relevant, much less who or what they are, is something that John Q. Public (Joe Sixpack's better educated neighbor) isn't particularly interested in. Similarly, explaining why Wright matters now, as opposed to back in the spring isn't a political winner.

Which reminds me: I must send Hillary a thank you card for flinging all that poo at Obama in the spring - it was a thorough vetting and an inoculation for the fall.

Finally, as to having newspapers realize their editorial pages are out of touch - I'm not holding my breath.